If your son is spending excessive amounts of time on his mobile phone, computer, or gaming console, reduce access to those devices or make him earn the right to use them. A nationwide survey found that 75 percent of teens are on a mobile phone plan that allows unlimited texting while only 13 percent of teens pay per message. Those with the unlimited plan send and receive seven times the amount of texts per day than teens on more limited plans, and fourteen times the number of texts per day than teens who pay per message.31 Consider getting a metered mobile phone plan that has limited voice and texting. Also consider keeping your son's computer or laptop in a main area of the house versus his bedroom. The National Sleep Foundation (NSF) found that when parents always enforce rules about how late smartphones and mobile phones can be used, their children got nearly an hour more sleep every night. The NSF also found that parents were two to three times more effective at enforcing those rules when they also removed electronic devices from their own bedrooms.32
For gaming consoles, it is important for parents not just to remove it or force their son to go cold turkey. “If a game really is the only place where a teen can feel in control, rewarded, and happy, then simply taking all of that away could be devastating for him,” says Neils Clark.33 A planned withdrawal program must be made so that time playing video games is reduced over time while other rewarding activities are introduced. Victoria Dunckley outlines a solid plan for parents to realistically reduce their children's screen time in her book, Reset Your Child's Brain.
Money goes wherever the ambition, innovation, and resilience are. New York City recently overtook London as the world's financial center, but by 2019 it is predicted that the center will shift again to Shanghai.34 Millennials will be the future leaders of tomorrow, but they won't be very good ones if they are overly medicated, obese, lack resilience, and spend thousands of hours playing video games and watching porn. Parents need to step up to ensure that their children have the confidence and courage to succeed and cooperate with others in the real world.
NINETEEN
What Men Can Do
Everyone must choose one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.
—Jim Rohn, entrepreneur and motivational speaker
One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.
—Abraham Maslow, humanist psychologist
If you are a young man and are looking for real life to be more rewarding or satisfying, you have to realize it's not going to happen while you're buried in a game or waiting on the sidelines. You are going to have to go outside and participate in it. When you're too busy looking down at your mobile phone or laptop, you aren't going to see the chances you miss. You may even start to develop the false belief that there are no opportunities to connect with others or get ahead in the world except for those found through technology. So turn off your digital identity and turn on yourself. Map out the steps to become the man that you would want to be friends with and do business with.
Learn how to dance, rediscover nature, make a female friend, and practice conversation openers. Practice the art of making others feel special by listening and giving genuine compliments. Find people who possess traits you want to have and study their lives, find living role models or mentors, and find something in the real world that motivates you. Become resourceful, and realize that you may have to take one step back in order to take two steps forward.
Turn Off the Porn
Remember Gabe Deem, the recovering porn addict and public speaker we mentioned in Chapter 11? He suggests asking yourself whether the porn you are currently watching represents your actual desires. His advice to other young men is to stay away from porn completely: “it will never satisfy you, and it will end up taking from you the one thing it promises to give you, the ability to feel pleasure.”1
Sexologist and relationship therapist Veronica Monet agrees. In her experience, “simply resolving to ‘cut back’ rarely leads to anything but temporary results inevitably followed by yet more compulsive behaviors and ever increasing negative effects.” She wisely states that people should be “careful when selecting a recovery resource,” because, “shame can perpetuate addictive patterns . . . Many of those who seek relief from the oppression of addiction find themselves trading the suffering of an active addiction for the suffering created by needless shame.”2
There's no question that if you desire intimacy with real people yet find you are having trouble getting turned on or climaxing with real people, you need to stop watching porn for at least a small period of time; there's really no way around it. Gary Wilson recommends the following test as a way to determine whether or not porn is an issue in your sex life (provided you have no medical issues):
On one occasion masturbate to your favorite porn or imagine it.
On a different occasion masturbate with no porn or porn fantasy—masturbate to sensation only.
Compare your erections during the two scenarios as well as the time it took to ejaculate (if you did ejaculate both times). Physically healthy young men should not have a problem getting a full erection and masturbating to orgasm in either scenario. If you had a full erection when masturbating to porn but erectile dysfunction (ED) without porn, you most likely have what has been termed porn-induced erectile dysfunction (PIED). Some men with PIED cannot maintain an erection even with porn. If you had ED during both scenarios, you might have a severe case of PIED or a physical problem. If you had a full erection in both scenarios but have trouble maintaining an erection with a real life partner, you most likely have social or performance anxiety.3
If you decide to take some downtime away from porn, you'll need to clarify your relationship with it so you can avoid its downsides. We'd recommend taking a break from porn even if you don't think you're struggling, just to see what happens. Porn can be a part of your fantasy life, just not the whole thing—and hopefully not the best thing. If this is something you are struggling with, the good news is your brain can heal. It may be worthwhile to take a break from porn even if you don't think you're struggling, just to see what happens.
Turning off the porn will, in effect, “reboot” the brain—allowing your dopamine receptors to recover and restore your reward circuit's sensitivity to normal, and “rewire” the brain, weakening the porn pathways from disuse and strengthening your executive control pathways. As your brain heals, you will become more easily aroused by real people and have more sensitivity in your penis. Your dopamine levels will most likely bounce back, too. Visit www.YourBrainOnPorn.com/tools-for-change for support and resources to help you make the change. We'd also recommend visiting the forums on www.RebootNation.org or Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/) for extra tools and support.
For those who have great difficulty controlling their porn use, the Internet itself is triggering. In these instances we've got very positive feedback from men who joined twelve-step programs. One young man who is in the process of recovering from excessive online porn use told us:
An Internet problem is typically not solved on the Internet. Trying to work on your online pornography problem online is like alcoholics hosting their AA [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings at a bar. Just as they are an order and sip away from losing their sobriety, you are but four to five clicks away from your personal poison.
I feel like the first steps to getting the porn squid unglued from the back of your brain involves shutting that sucker down and connecting with people. Joining a support group will break some of the bonds of isolation and shame that are part of this disease. Sharing your darkest, dirtiest secrets with people, and finding that they will accept you with understanding and compassion, is a life-changing paradigm shift. We can't just go around blurting out our personal pornography struggles with just anyone. This is where a recovery community comes in!
There are a variety of resources available to those who are willing to go out of their comfort zone and seek the supp
ort of a group. Support groups can be an extremely valuable tool to those stuck in isolation who do not know how to approach their problem, or even ask for help. The therapy groups provide a clinically guided milieu where pornography addicts can provide support for each other, while adding in a dynamic of accountability, which creates healthy boundaries for the recovering individual.
Lastly (but CERTAINLY not least), twelve-step groups allow for individuals who are struggling with porn addiction to integrate themselves into a spiritually focused program that will provide the recovering addict with a multitude of tools for staying sober, and addressing the aspects of their beliefs, character traits and personal histories that have been the underlying root of their addiction. Furthermore, they allow for one to connect with a community of recovery-focused individuals, and tap into the wealth of experience from its members. While I attend a twelve-step group regularly, I simultaneously visit a traditional therapist that specializes in sex/porn addiction. In the first session I told him, “I had a pretty great childhood. I really don't think I have any trauma.” Unfortunately for me, this false belief kept me stuck in my recovery for quite a while. In fact, I could never piece together more than a month or two of sobriety, until I started really taking a look at the underlying network of issues [from my past]. Being part of the group helped me delve deeper into these issues, and see that it was more than just an “opportunity addiction.” I learned from the wisdom of their experiences.
It is important to remember that there are no quick fixes or magic bullets in overcoming excessive porn use—as in any addictions to drugs, alcohol, gambling, or food.
Beyond porn, having sex on your mind all the time or as a big part of your identity can be a good thing—a lot of very successful people have very high sex drives—but you need to learn how to redirect your sex energy out of lust and into the heart and mind, where it can serve your higher values instead of just your primal instincts. When transforming sexual energy into thoughts and actions of another nature, you have to use willpower to visualize and mindfully redirect that energy.
An excellent resource for further reading on the topic is Napoleon Hill's classic text Think and Grow Rich, as well as the blog of personal development author Steve Pavlina. In his post, entitled “Sex Energy,” Pavlina suggests using sexual energy as fuel to achieve your goals. By learning your arousal triggers, he says, goals become more enjoyable because you can direct the path to get there:
When you're sexually aroused, you feel a compulsion to take some kind of action. Your hormones take over, and you become incredibly focused and can't think about anything but the object of your desire. This is what it feels like to be driven by a goal that really inspires you . . . Pursuing your goals is like practicing the art of seduction . . . You may encounter some obstacles now and then that make you want to quit, but stop and ask yourself if the chemistry is still there. Momentarily forget about the path you're on, and just picture the goal itself. Imagine you're already there. Do you still really, really want it? . . . Remember that the whole point of goal-setting is to get your thoughts and actions moving in a new direction. If you aren't driven to action, you've set lousy goals.4
Moral of the story: if you want more control over your life, acquire a better understanding of what motivates you. If your default behavior involves frittering away your time with passive and semi-fulfilling distractions, guess what you're going to get? Semi-fulfillment.
Time Bandit-Look at What Else You Could Be Doing
It's worth considering just how much time you spend engaged in various activities throughout the day. If you feel any resistance to doing this, chances are you need to cut the amount of time you spend playing video games, especially if you're doing it alone. People most vulnerable to addiction are usually socially or personally disadvantaged, so start playing games that involve interactions with others, preferably in person.
Consider transferring some hours spent gaming into accomplishing real-life goals. Below is a chart comparing the average number of hours spent playing video games with the average time it takes to complete other goals.
Average time for activity5
Play Sports
As a boy, I (Phil) recall being less than capable physically because of a childhood medical problem that made me weak, uncoordinated, and thus poor in sports. Determined to make the neighborhood stickball team, I practiced alone in the schoolyard hitting a Spalding (a pink rubber ball) with a sawed-off old broomstick for hours against the wall until I mastered the art. Hitting such a ball far was not so much a matter of muscles, but of wrist torque, of snapping the wrist properly at the moment of contact. In a matter of time, I became a legendary “three sewer man,” meaning I could reliably hit that Spalding over the length of three New York sewers. It's still one of my proudest achievements decades later.
Naturally my idol became Boston Red Sox baseball star Ted Williams, nicknamed “The Splendid Splinter,” who was also a big skinny guy. That ability to hit a stickball carried over to softball and baseball, and I became a star centerfielder who could hit a softball over a 350-foot wall in the Kelly Street playground. With that athletic ability and a bit of charm, I became the captain of the team and used that authority to suggest to the other guys that they might also enjoy roller-skating with the girls in the streets, and then persuaded the girlfriends of the older guys on the block to give the younger ones social dancing lessons at the local community center to enhance their pickup skills. In addition, the success from that dedicated practice also carried over to being conscientious in my schoolwork, and later being generous in my giving to others less fortunate. So the message is that practice may not always make perfect, but it surely will make you more competent at any activity that is important for you.
In this respect, the current times are no different. Many men who are able to conquer their fears and succeed physically among other men on any dimension find that instead of feeling the need to prove themselves to other males, they can now cultivate their “feminine” core values, such as compassion, vulnerability, and self-reflection. One parent from our survey commented on how her sons learn self-confidence through tae kwon do:
They feel confident they can protect themselves against bullies. They can see their accomplishments through passing belt tests. They have older adult male and female mentors who teach discipline and mutual respect. Plus the kids get to see the older mentors sometimes try, fail and try again. Great life lessons!
Few activities teach mental toughness and ownership like individual sports, or collaboration and resilience like team sports. No matter what your level of skill, there's a group of young men or even coed teams out there who want you on their team or to join their league. For adults who want to join or start a group, see if there's already one in your local area by looking up the sport on Google, Meetup (www.MeetUp.com), or join a gym or club where you can meet people who share your interests.
If sports aren't your thing, activities with rhythmic qualities, like singing, dancing, or playing a musical instrument, are great alternatives. They also provide a powerful environment for social bonding. Another thing you can do to take a break from the constant bombardment of external stimuli is schedule a relaxing massage or fit in moments where you can go outside to a quiet park or hiking trail and allow your mind to free itself from distractions.
Make Your Bed: Small Accomplishments Lead to Bigger Accomplishments
In 2014, when US Navy Admiral and US Special Operations Commander William H. McRaven delivered the commencement address at the University of Texas, the first piece of advice he gave to the new graduates was to make their bed. He explained that by doing so, a person will have just performed their first successful act of the day, which then sets the tone for accomplishing more tasks. When the day is over, that one small task can snowball into many finished tasks. Though the act of making one's own bed is simple and mundane, it reiterates that the little things in life can have a significant impact. “If you can't do the little things
right, you will never do the big things right,” he said. Plus, if the day didn't go as well as hoped, coming home to a made bed offers some encouragement that the next day will be better.6
This is how habits are formed. The more little things you do right on a regular basis, forming good habits, the easier it will be to move your life in a positive direction and reap the benefits that build on those habits.
Related advice comes from social psychologist Roy Baumeister. For years he researched self-esteem, but says he “reluctantly advise[s] people to forget about it.” He believes that “self-control plays a much more important role in personal success than self-esteem.”7
I (Phil) can also attest to the impact self-control has throughout one's life. In my research on time perspective, I found that the better a child understands causal sequences and the costs and benefits associated with their decisions, the more successful they will be in school and the better they will fare emotionally, financially, and health-wise later in adulthood. In particular, children who are highly future-oriented are also highly conscientious, do not procrastinate, and resist daily temptations when there is work to get done. (To discover your time perspective, visit www.TheTimeParadox.com.)
Other basic things to get in the habit of doing are eating a balanced diet and getting enough sleep. Create a schedule for yourself that sets you up for success.
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